Breathing Underwater
by cottoncandyofthejungle
Summary: Allura never really liked humans and she thought she never would, until she meets one. Shiro knew that humans weren't alone in the universe but he never knew that what was actually out there was underwater. After meeting one another, they begin to see life very differently and begin to wonder what it would be like to be a part of each other's world.*Mermaid AU- Shallura*
1. Sleeping with the Fishes

**Breathing Underwater**

 **Chapter 1**

 _*Allura's pov*_

Allura sat up quickly in alarm. Something had fallen onto her face whilst she was sleeping. She glanced around suspiciously trying to see if she could see any of the shrimps that loved to bury themselves in her curly white mass of hair while she slept. Then with a jolt of anger, she spied a soda float downstream. Allura had been so used to waking up from a nap to see bits of trash float to the seabed, but not float onto her head.

Over the decades more and more litter began to pile up. Though she couldn't understand why? Maybe the humans believed that they were doing the mermaids a favour by offering better food for them to eat and plastic wrappers to make new clothing. All in all, Allura disliked these 'offers' as much as the fish and the sea creatures disliked digesting them. Just the other day, Allura had to fish a plastic soda wrapper from out of Coran's catfish's, Whiskers, mouth. She raged and raged to Coran the rest of that day about the irresponsible over landers and their wicked ways. Coran attempted to convince Allura that not all of them were attempting to wipe out the sea life and make fish stew out of the merpeople. She didn't believe him every time he went onto the same old same old speech of "Humans are friends. Not enemies", even when they emptied into the seas every year, rubbish and waste oil. She would attempt to swim to the surface every time she glimpsed a figure after some rubbish fell into the water but Coran would always mysteriously pop up to warn her not to. Allura smirked, "How comes I can't tell our 'friends' to quit bombarding us with their ever so kind 'presents', huh Coran?" "Just no, Allura I've told you many times before, the humans agreed centuries ago to stay out of area cause of their outlandish fear and the big agreement."

How could she ever forget about the 'big agreement'? Her father, Alfor, had been away on land for months trying to persuade the human ambassadors to agree to avoid the merpeople due to their new warmongering weapons of nuclear bombs and acids. The merpeople feared that despite being neutral in the overland politics and battles, their homes would be in danger of attack due to the humans' selfish and violent decisions. Allura didn't mind the humans too much previously. That was until they took the life of her mother and father during a battle between their humongous war vessels.


	2. Into the Woods

**Chapter 2**

 _*Shro's pov*_

Shiro finally realised why he had never gone off the path before. Cause it sucked. His cool off time was usually casually ambling. Now it felt like a trek, he was exhausted, with weary legs and scratched arms-mainly his right arm- from all the bramble and bushes he pushed through. He decided to take a break from all of his walking by going towards the river that was a couple of steps away from the path he avoided. "I wonder if other planets have woods as rough as this one?" Shiro pondered "maybe some even worse..."

He finally stopped at the riverside and lowered himself to the ground. With a sigh, he pushed back his white fringe across his jet black hair, his skin glistened with sweat and his cheeks were flushed with exhaustion. Shiro lowered his flesh arm into the water and moved his fingers with the shape of the current. Whilst making ripples with his calloused fingertips, Shiro slowly laid back on to the ground to look up at the sky. On the beach, it was rare to find shade unless he decides to hog Pidge's umbrella but there underneath the thick canopy of trees the heat of the day barely touched him. The stunning greens and oranges of the leaves above him were all distinct but began to merge as he felt himself lull gently to sleep aided by the hushing sound of the gentle stream beside him. Shiro would've easily fallen asleep to the river's lullaby if it wasn't for the loud screech and holler that suddenly echoed through the woods.

Author's notes: Thanks ever so much for reading this. This is my first fanfic and I'll try my best to make it great. If you have any comments or if I've made any mistakes, please review. If you've really like what you've seen so far do make sure to like it and follow. If you have any questions about 'Breathing Underwater', then please do message me. This is going to be something new for me just getting into writing and fleshing out the to make sure the characters don't seem ooc or anything. I need to go to bed now. I was going to but I saw a really motivating and v. negative review that propelled me to push out a second(and tiny) chapter, Have a nice day, carpe diem and whatever xoxo


	3. Shut your Quiznak

**Chapter 3**

"Yoo-hoo, oh Shiro my precious." yelled a familiar voice. Shiro shot up from the ground and began to look around for the owner of that voice. The brushes surrounding the river began to quiver as loud footsteps grew closer to where he was. "Hiya everyone I'm just over here.", Shiro replied. He quietly sighed when his four friends appeared from out of the wall of trees.

"Hey man, what is this place, I ain't never seen this side of the woods?" quizzed Hunk. Lance joined in looking confused, "Me too, and I own this place." The entire group stared at Shiro questioningly and looked curiously around the area in which they were standing. To be honest, Shiro wasn't really sure how to answer their quizzing eyes and was ready to stammer out an answer, only for Keith to jump to a new subject.

"Please tell me you didn't leave all our snacks back over there when we were looking for Shiro." Keith said aggressively turning towards Lance. "Nah, of course not why would I do something that terribly stupid?" Lance nervously giggled and then pouted. He turned to Pidge and said "Pidgeon, be a darling and quickly run and get my bag, pretty please?"

"Lance I'll only be a darling when you remember where you put your freaking head." Pidge muttered "Why don't you just get it yourself, you left it!"

"Pidge, how would I forget where I put my head when it's forever on the shoulders of my beloved Hunk," and with that Lance sprawled himself dramatically over Hunk, snaking his arms around his thick shoulders."Hunk, you know you love me so much..."

"Okay okay. No need for the flattery, I'll get it, I'll get it just so that the foxes don't run off with my famous bread rolls" Shiro at this grinned at the thought of savouring Hunk's delicious bread rolls that never managed to fill his stomach no matter how many he crammed. Hunk ambled back into the gathering of trees to go fetch Lance's bag and the group decided to seat themselves on the logs and huge rocks that lay about in the clearing.

"So guys, how was your time down on the beach, eh?" Shiro asked. By then, Hunk had returned with the food backpack. He, Pidge and Keith groaned in chorus, "Oh hoho, entertaining to say the least" "Absolutely crazy" "Don't get me started!". Shiro glanced out of the corner of his eye at Lance who was casually reclining on a log, "Hey what can I say? We spent our time creatively..." Shiro was sure he saw a cheeky light glisten in Lance's eyes.

"No, seriously what happened?" Everyone excluding Lance broke out into their own stories of what happened on the beach at the same time. Hunk would giggle every couple of sentences into his tale, while Pidge animatedly waved their arms, doing funny facial expressions to suit whoever's voice they were mimicking. The entire time, Keith was glaring daggers at the oblivious mischievous teen sat across from him. Everything he said was punctuated with a snap of whatever twig or stick he managed to grasp off the ground.

"Wait, wait. One at a time. Pidge, tell me!" Shiro tried to hide the growing grin on his face at the sight of Keith shooting up in shock. He could totally tell where this was going.

"Oh my gosh, where do I start," cackled Pidge. "O-Oh, start where we having the sandcastle building competition." Hunk in putted excitedly. "That was freaking great. Well, as of course Hunk said we decide to have a sandcastle building competition. The thing is we split into groups and had to have complete the castle in 15 minutes. Naturally, Hunk and I joined our amazing intellects and skills together," To which Hunk proudly bowed and tossed his hair back, "And those two losers over there attempted to form the dream team." Pidge pointed towards Keith and Lance at this,

Shiro shook his head in mock displeasure and laughed "So I guess you two lost?" "Lost, that's an understatement, more like crashed and burned into ashes." Hunk and Pidge high-fived at Pidge's flawless burn. "No, no, no. I would've won if it wasn't for Lance meddling with my design." Keith interjected. Lance turned swiftly to him and jokingly said "Keith, you do know there's no 'I' in team, guess you can't spell huh?" "Shut your quiznak!"

Shiro jumped in-between the two of them at the right time just as Keith was about to tackle Lance. "Chill, it wasn't that bad, was it? "Shiro, it gets so much worse." Hunk popped in and Pidge began to roll on the ground in a fit of laughter to Keith's annoyance. Shiro didn't even have to ask any further, he just turned to Keith who began to ramble and blush(whether from annoyance or embarrassment he wasn't sure). "- you know how I get really sleepy in the sun and all, right? I decide to just quickly doze a little since the others were in the water, kay. I fell asleep and well-" "Lance turned Keith into a sand mermaid!" Shiro turned curiously to Lance to see if he looked like he had a death wish, it seemed he didn't as a huge smile from ear to ear was glued to his face. Hunk was seated next to him with a mouth full of ham sandwich and choked out "-with seaweed hair, a huge seashell bra and everything".

That explained to Shiro, the salty smell of Keith's mullet. "Oh I was wondering why Keith's hair smelt a tad bit fishy." Shiro chuckled slyly. His friends all began to whoop and fist bump Shiro whilst Keith looked on in slight annoyance before he decided to join them in the laughter.

"Ha ha real funny, you guys," Keith smirked sarcastically. "Can we have our lunch, further down the stream? So that we can be closer to the sea and out these weird woods."

With this, all of them picked up their jackets that they had peeled of and Shiro helped Hunk pack away all the food that they had. Their jokes and laughter filled the air as they began their walk away from the river and back towards the sea.

 _A/N: I really enjoyed writing this chapter. The banter between the paladins is what I love the most. Maybe, just maybe, next chapter Coran will be there to enjoy. As Coran is the underappreciated precious space/sea uncle. Make sure you follow this as I have big plans for this fanfic, might make some fanart. If i've made any spelling mistakes or if the characters seem ooc lemme know. Hope you enjoyed reading + have a nice day xoxo._


	4. Dig a little deeper

"Hey!", Allura yelped and brushed aside Whiskers' fin from off her shoulder, "O-oh, it's just you". A smile of recognition spread across Allura's face as she sat up from the boulder that she was sprawled across. At every opportunity she had, Allura would sneak away from Coran's guarding watch and spare some minutes to sunbathe and think to herself.

As always, Coran would send Whiskers to hunt her down, but being the amiable, little catfish he was, he had never out right revealed where Allura hid. Allura's way of saying thanks to him, was to appease him with his favourite food, fiery seaweed -which only grew in areas where his bulkier form could never squeeze into.

That's exactly how Allura found her current hiding place, a clearing in a swarming forest 'fire' of the spicy seaweed. When she found the news of her parents' death, she flew to a quiet place of solace where even Coran, her closest companion, couldn't find her. The array of living oranges, gold and scarlets had always been able to comfort her whenever she felt upset or become the perfect backdrop of glowing and almost unnatural harmony on good days - like today.

"Whiskers, my friend, you're going to have to start laying off the seaweed as I fear Coran will begin to question your rapidly increasing weight!" Allura giggled as she patted the catfish's stomach as it languidly swam over her. She flitted off the boulder towards the sea floor and began to bore her hands into the tightly packed sand until it loosened. The dopey catfish lulled towards her with mild interest at her actions. Allura gently pushed Whiskers' curious head away from the ground and looked up with confusion. "My apologies, I didn't realise you wanted to help. Go ahead". The catfish started forward then turned its head to inquire Allura's strange excavation further. Their reply came in the form of the mermaid simply shrugging her shoulders, allowing her abundance of pearly white hair to billow around her, and turning to dig through the sand.

Despite her shining pale hair contrasting with her nut brown skin, the shimmering light blues and pinks of her scales integrated all of the colours together in a way that accentuated her dazzling, almost serpentine form underneath the turquoise hued sea.

The turquoise sea which hid an object that Allura desired above anything in its depths. Her late mother's amulet. A piece of jewellery with the most remarkable features. Colours that couldn't compare to the glimmering pigments of the deep.

Many had believed its glory forever lost when her parents were killed. The many who fled the Altean regions of the sea had also believed they would lose their lives along with the amulet. Allura's mother's wedding gift from her father Alfor was a physical promise of protection over all those who dwelled in Altea. So with the King and Queen dead and their sole heir not yet ready for the Coral throne, Altea was left destitute of its people and ultimately its soul. Those who remained were either humble stewards to the royal family, faithfully waiting for the amulet's return or the refugees who appeared as a result of the latest oceanic crisis.

Altea's close proximity to the 'safer' areas of overlanders lent it an advantage over the many polluted or already inhabited dwellings under sea to which the refugees would usually flee. That and the fact that the remaining monarch was rumoured to be blessed by the Sisters with powers beyond merman's imagination.

A/N: \\(^0^\\) I had typed a massive a/n but I just deleted it welpppppp. I hope you liked this chapter, I did! make sure to review and follow/fav Breathing Underwater. The title came from a gorgeous song of the same name but an amazing band called Hiatus Kaiyote, check them out!(/^0^)/


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